The Impact of Attending a Psycho-educational Antenatal Group on the Observed Parent-Infant Relationship

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Author

Parkinson, Andrew

Attention

2299/9738

Abstract

The important implications of the attachment relationship have led researchers to
consider what the precursors to a secure attachment relationship are. Ainsworth, Bell,
and Stayton (1971) proposed that maternal sensitivity was the fundamental trait in
developing a secure attachment relationship. However, recent research has identified
that mind-mindedness; the tendency of a parent to treat their infant as an individual
with a mind (Meins, Fernyhough, Fradley & Tuckey, 2001), is a better predictor of
parent infant attachment than maternal sensitivity.
This study explored the impact of a new antenatal intervention called Baby World on
the subsequent mind-mindedness of participants as well as its impact on the parent
infant relationship. Participants who had attended the Baby World class and standard
NHS antenatal classes (intervention group, N=21) were compared to those who had
only attended standard NHS antenatal classes (control group, N=19). The study also
explored whether planned pregnancies led to more mind-mindedness than unplanned
pregnancies; whether emotional and physical wellbeing in pregnancy predicted mindmindedness
and if there was any concordance between couples mind-mindedness.
Results showed that participants in the intervention group used significantly more
appropriate mind-minded comments than those in the control group. The intervention
group also scored significantly higher than the control group on the Absence of
Hostility subscale of the Maternal Postnatal Attachment Scale (MPAS, Condon &
Corkindale, 1998). There was a non-significant trend of the intervention group scoring
higher than the control group on the overall MPAS score as well as the Pleasure in
Interaction subscale of the MPAS. The results also illustrated that emotional and
physical wellbeing in pregnancy did not predict mind-mindedness and no concordance
between couples mind-mindedness was found. Theoretical explanations of these
findings are presented and the clinical implications and future research are discussed.